What many don’t see when they meet me or read my writing is that I am very much alone in this
Lyme Journey and am struggling just to survive…and that it is neither an easy existence nor
easy to choose between necessities like food or supplements/herbs/alternative treatments/alternative doctors that
others are doing since I cannot afford both…and I die a little inside each
time they talk about these things like it is “the only way”...like we “have-to”
do these things if we ever hope to heal…and I leave those conversations with a
deep and growing feeling inside like healing or wellness for me is hopelessly
out of my reach. It is difficult to make
that ok and to silence that inside me...but I must. I
know that that is not what they mean, or for this to be what people take away
from it when they share like that…and I strongly suspect that they are completely unaware
of how it affects a number of fellow struggling Lymies who likewise cannot afford all those
things, or just how deeply it hurts that they make us feel like these things
are "absolutely necessary" (i.e. like you will "never heal" if you don’t go to an
expensive cash-pay Lyme-Literate Medical Doctor aka LLMD). As is my heart, I am compassionate and appreciate what I
think they are meaning which I believe is to be "helpful," but that doesn’t stop
that little part of me from dying inside and grieving the life that I will lose because I
don’t have that kind of money and how out of reach they make my healing seem. I realize that they do not know this and I
have deep love and appreciation that they are trying to help. When it is too much and I cannot silence my
grief I redirect it into researching, to trying to pick apart what is truly
necessary from all that is not...and when I discover…just that knowing for
myself that I really don’t have to buy this something or do that something in
order to heal it gives me some hope that even I (and you) can heal…which
allows me to remain optimistic that we will find a cure...which very well may be my only way out of Lyme Land.
